Do you source material from China? A recent news report has identified that tens of thousands of factories in China have been shutdown in a "EPA" crackdown since June 2017.
Some factories are receiving no warning and are subject to immediate shutdown for non-compliance. There are many affected industries including Leather, Textiles and Chemicals and the regions known to already be affected are: Shandong, Henan, Hebai, Tianjin, Beijing, Zhejiang, Jilin, Jiangsu, Sichuan, Guandong.
The results of this could be far reaching and LWG have tannery members in many of the areas above.
Our recommendation to our members is to check your supply chain to...

With the launch of the Trader Protocol in October 2016 and the introduction of Protocol 6.5 which comes into mandatory effect from 1st October 2017, there are important changes that will have an effect on the scoring for many of our leather manufacturers when they next undergo an audit. These useful Information Bulletins are designed to help our members understand the changes that will come into effect in October. You can access these bulletins by clicking here: Information Bulletins

Due to the continued growth in membership and increase in scope of the Leather Working Group, we are recruiting for 2 additional LWG Approved Auditors.
More information can be found on the "Our Auditors" page here: Our Auditors.
The deadline for applications is Monday 16th October 2017. All completed application forms, accompanied by a CV, should to forwarded to Deborah at: deborah@leatherworkinggroup.com

A new Policy Document has been published on the dangers of hydrogen sulphide in tanneries. The document can be found under "Other Documents" in the Audit Protocol section of the website. You can also click here to view it now: http://www.leatherworkinggroup.com/contentfiles/LWG-449.pdf

The LWG Chemical Management Module (CMM) was launched in Hong Kong at our member meeting on 1st April 2017. This CMM is currently a voluntary stand alone audit module which can be added to a leather manufacturer's existing audit (if the audit has more than 12 months left to run) or arranged to be undertaken at the point of the next main audit.
The intention is that the CMM will be integrated into the main audit protocol in the next full upgrade to P7 which is not likely to be before 2019.
More information about the CMM and the protocol itself can be found here: LWG Chemical Management Module

After months of development and planning we hope you enjoy browsing our new website. Over the coming weeks we will be adding more documents and information to help you get the most from your membership. For login assistance please click here.